Berkeley: As go styrofoam containers, so goes Bush...

Fresh off of declaring Tuesday "Cindy Sheehan Day," the City of Berkeley voted this week to put the impeachment of Bush and Cheney to a popular vote on the November ballot. On the red-blue political map of America, of course, Berkeley shows up as black. Mother Jones is too right-wing for Berkeley! But don't take my word for it; reading between the lines of this bland comment, you can just about glean where Berkeley's mayor is coming from politically: "It's not about Bush and Cheney, much as I despise them. It's about the Constitution and what they're doing to it."

Anticipating some eye-rolling, Bates also said, "Some people might say, 'Oh, only in Berkeley.' But things that start in Berkeley have a history of eventually being adopted by the rest of the country." To which my first reaction was, Name one! Well...

[F]irst city to desegregate its public schools, first to establish curbside recycling, first to divest itself of investments in South Africa, first to establish a citizens' police review commission, first to ban Styrofoam containers and first to mandate curb cuts for disabled access.

It's easy to make fun of Berkeley, of course--even if you love the place, as I do--but on this one I hope the city proves as ahead of the curve as it did on styrofoam.